High Plains Panhandler

Fogo

I'm back for another round of Washington D.C. goodness, and dinner the other night was at Fogo de Chao, a Brazilian steakhouse. I had never been to one of these places before, but I had heard it was all about meat.

And that it was. As soon as we sat down waiters immediately started coming by the table with large skewers of meat. They'd present the meat, saying something like: "Would you like [something unintelligible]?" And I'd say, "Sure!" Then they'd peel off a slice or cut off a chunk and place it on my plate.

And they kept coming and coming and coming until I had a tower of meat on my plate, and nowhere, however hard I looked, was a speck of green vegetable.

I quickly discovered the process to stop the river of meat. There was a small coaster near my glass of water. One side was green. This meant "Bring on the meat!". The other side was red, which told the waiters to give me a slight break.

Once I figured out the strategic use of the green/red coaster, things were much less stressful. No one appeared every few seconds with another skewer of meat, and I was able to figure out (or at least attempt to figure out) what exactly was on my plate.

I've heard a lot of people say Amarillo is beef country, and I guess judging from all the smelly feedlots there's some truth in that. But rounding up cattle that eventually end up in Big Macs is a far cry from the meat debauchery at Fogo. I think the Texas Panhandle has a few lessons to learn in the fine art of red meat.

I also think that was my meat intake for the year. Next stop: the salad bar.

Las Vegas Blessing

It's my annual pilgrimage to Las Vegas for NAB, the National Association of Broadcasters convention. As I stood in line to register for the show, a man next to me started up a conversation:

Man: Is this the registration line.

Me: Yes, I sure hope so.

Man: Are you a Christian?

Me: What?

Man: Are you a Christian?

I looked at him dumbfounded.

Man: Let's pray together so you can have a blessing today.

Me: You can do that?

Man: We'll pray and Jesus will do it.

Me: Really?

Man: Really!

Me: Then if you have some kind of direct line to God or magical powers, I think you should get those blessings to those families in Virginia who are suffering right now. I don't need a blessing to be at NAB. But those families need whatever you can give them.

Man: God doesn't work that way.

Me: Isn't that the problem?

Man: Let's pray together, brother.

I looked in his eyes and saw obliviousness, oblivious to the incomprehensible pain and tragedy that had happened half a continent away. Oblivious to the nonsensical misery, destruction, chaos, and bloodshed of innocent people.

He bowed his head and clasped his hand, and I walked away.

D.I. State Tournament

We spent this past weekend in Dallas for the Destination Imagination state tournament. Dallas is about six hours away, so we spent the afternoon driving. As usual, we passed through a series of small West Texas towns, most quiet and sleepy, one with a county inmate in a black and white striped jumpsuit smoking a cigarette on the sidewalk outside the town jail. I believe he gave me the stink eye.

The tournament began Saturday, but Friday night was the team mixer. This is where all the teams from all over the state congregate and trade team pins (each state region has its own pin). Some kids had hundreds of different pins collected from different tournaments and teams.

There are sixteen regions in Texas. Colleen's DI team, The Odd Sparks, is from the Northwest Texas region. Here's a map.

Since the weather in Dallas was horrible, soaking, and tornado-filled, the tournament held the pin-swapping team mixer indoors at the University of Texas at Dallas campus. There were hundred of kids at the mixer. It was very, very crowded. You could barely make your way across the floor without getting poked or prodded or medically examined in some way.

Our team had fun swamping pins and meeting all sorts of interesting kids from around the state. But after an hour or so of crammed bodies, loud voices, and wet sneaker smells, we headed over to Uncle Bob and Aunt Tara's house to drop off Alex and Megan (they were going to have all sorts of fun at a school carnival the next morning) and then get back to our team hotel so Colleen could get a good night's rest.
Tournament morning began quite early, and from then on the day went quickly, shuttling props and kids from one building to the next, watching other teams perform, and waiting around in the merciless cold (it was unbelievably chilly that day). Around three or so the team had finished, polishing off their instant challenge first and then their main challenge right after lunch.

So then we did what any rational people would do with a few hours to burn before the awards ceremony. We went to Dave & Busters.

Dave & Busters is a . . . how do I describe this? A . . . place of loudness and zombie video games. And pool. And food. Not such great food, but food nonetheless. And as a connoisseur of fine video fare such as Galaga, Gorf, and Defender I had thought the video game room at Dave & Busters would be a second home. But it wasn't. It was loud, pinging and dinging and popping and flashing, and you couldn't hear even the loudest official government message from your cranial implant over all the noise, noise, noise, noise.

All those Who's down in Whoville!

We blew a quick $20 on skee-ball and Megan and Alex redeemed their expansive prize ticket collection for a can of Tootsie Rolls and some bitter candy that came in a dispenser like scotch tape. The person who gave us our prizes sweated profusely, her mouth hung open as her raspy breath rattled through it.

After dinner we rushed to the tournament award ceremony, which was in a gigantic domed arena. The ceremony started with representatives from every state region trotting out in front of the crowd, holding signs naming their region. It was like an Olympic ceremony. We recognized the person from our team in the parade because of the huge homemade balloon hat on her head. We tried to yell at her, but we were too far up in the noise bleed section. I believe the Russians in the space station heard us, though.

The ceremony lasted for a few hours, and the Odd Sparks, although they did their best, didn't score high enough to go to the global competition. But that's not the important part. It's important that they were there. They got to compete with people from all over the state (and it's a big state!) and left wanting to try a little harder next year.

That's the thing, isn't it? You try and try and try and end up in the stratosphere on benches listening hard to someone who never says your name. And then when the next year comes around you try again.
Maybe that's the "destination" in D.I. The competition and tournaments are merely means of getting there.
Well that and the long road from Amarillo to Dallas, complete with prison garb.

April Fish

We had a great plan, oh it was great: a old-fashioned egg hunt in the backyard to celebrate the Easter bunny's arrival. We called some friends and promised them a great time on the verdant and freshly mown backyard, but we miscalculated. The weather gave us the thing we hadn't expected.

Snow.

Snow on Easter. Just another spastic weather day in the Texas Panhandle.

Before everyone came over, we had a little family lesson on how the rest of the world celebrates Easter. Earlier that week, Colleen, Megan, and Alex chose a country to research, and then they gave a report (complete with musical selection!) to the rest of us. This was Colleen's:

I did Italy. I was really surprised at some of the information I found. One of the things was they don't have Easter Sunday. They have Easter Monday. And then I made this bread. It was a mix between a bread and a cake. It was what the Italians have at Easter time. It was some Italian name - I forgot - but it was with sprinkles; it was the Italian way of making it so it was, you know, kind of hard. We're used to the American way of making bread. So it was, well, just different. But it was worth it. It was good. Everybody loved it. It was a big hit. It started with a 'C'. That's all. Goodbye. That's all folks. Tune in next week.

P.S. I played "The Swan" on my cello. It was pretty. My dad almost cried. My mom did cry the first time I played it for her. Okay. Now for real, goodbye.

And Alex's:

I played Adantino on my viola, and when we had our Easter egg hunt I ate chocolate.

And Megan's:

I played The French Folk song on my violin. My country was France. I talked about that kids like not only chocolate bunnies but chocolate fish too. Children go around sticking paper fish on the backs of as many adults as possible. Then they run away yelling, "April fish!" I picked France because I thought it would be exciting to find out different traditions they do for Easter.

Later that afternoon, after the all the kids and their friends had finished their egg hunting and they were getting down to business devouring their chocolate bunnies, eggs, and bars, one of our friends asked me a question. "I was wondering," he said, "about that piece of paper on your back."

I looked at him suspiciously. "What. Does it look like a fish?"

"Yep. It says . . ."

And then Megan appeared out of nowhere and shouted, "April Fish!" Then she disappeared just as quickly, giggling fiendishly.

And I, wearing my paper fish accessory, was left with a handful of vomit, rotten egg, earthworm, and dirt flavored Harry Potter jelly beans, wondering if I had the courage to eat them.

I didn't, of course.